Minutes of the Microbial Control Division Business Meeting

 

Quebec City, Canada, 20.00-21.15 Aug 15, 2007

 

 

Current Officers

Chairperson:Michael Brownbridge (NZ) 2005-2007
Chairperson Elect: Paresh Shah (UK) 2005-2007
Secretary/Treasurer: Zhengzhi Li (China) 2005-2007
Member at Large: Sean Moore (South Africa) 2006-2008
Member at Large: Richard Meadow (Norway) 2005-2007

Student Representative:Marcos Faria (Brazil) 2006-2008

 

Ex Officio

Chair: Jeff Lord 2003-2005     

Secretary/Treasurer: Travis Glare 2003-2005

Member at large: Melanie Filotas 2003-2005

Member at Large: Vince d’Amico 2004-2006

 

Election of Officers for Quebec

Chairperson Elect; Secretary/Treasurer; Member at Large (1)

 

Minutes from the 2006 BM

Minutes from the 2006 MCD BM unanimously approved as-written.

 

Membership

Current membership listed as 192, approximately half of the SIP membership.

 

Finances

Income and Expenditure

 

Fund Transfer for Speaker Awards	$ 1,500.00
Fund Transfer for Student Awards	$    750.00
Fund Refund for unused awards	$(1,750.00)
Total Fund Transfer	$    500.00
Net Revenue After Fund Transfers	$    413.83
FUND BALANCE
30/04/2006	30/04/2007
$ 5,533.33	$ 5,947.16
Membership Dues (previous; current)	2006	2007
Microbial Control (188@$2; 177@$2)	$376.00	$    354.00

 

 

Investments owned by SIP	CD FIRSTBANK OF PR
Microbial Control Division	REDEEMED	Interest Earned*
Cost**	$ 3,000.00	$   59.83
Maturity Date	24/05/2006
Interest Rate	4.00%
TOTAL VALUE	$30,000.00	$ 59.83
	CD TOWN & CTRY BANK NV
	PENDING
Microbial Control Division
Cost**	$ 3,000.00
Maturity Date	25/04/2008
Interest Rate	4.75%
TOTAL VALUE	$ 3,000.00

 

Interest and Investments

$3,000 of the fund balance held by the MCD was invested in a short-term CD to generate interest income for re-investment in the Division.  In FY 06-07, one CD was redeemed and another purchased during the fiscal year. 

 

All financial reports prepared and supplied by Margaret "Peg" Rotstein, Executive Secretary, SIP.

 

Financial statements unanimously approved as presented.

 

MCD Travel Awards

One request for travel support were received from the organizers of the symposium on microbial control of orchard pests (Lerry Lacey).  An award of US$500 was provided to support the participation of Claudia Dolinski, a Junior Professor at the Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense Darcy Ribeiro near Rio de Janeiro.

 

The officers of the MCD selected Sabino Pacheco Guillén, IBT-UNAM, México, to receive the MCD Student Travel Award for his submission ‘Single point mutations in the Manduca sexta cadherin receptor that affect binding and toxicity of Cry1A toxins’.  The award will be for $500 was presented at the meeting.

 

MCD-sessions, Sponsored Symposia and Workshops

At the meeting, 39 Contributed Papers were listed for presentation in five Microbial Control sessions.  Of these, 3 are listed as student presentations.  Twelve posters were presented under the MCD banner. 

 

Volunteers to Chair all of the MC sessions have been solicited from the ranks of the MCD membership.

 

Advances in the use of Microbial Agents for Control of Orchard Pests’ was overwhelmingly selected as the ‘primary’ MCD-supported symposium, co-sponsored with the Nematode Division.

 

The MCD decided not to hold a session on 'New Microbial Control Products’ at this year's meeting. It has been proposed instead to hold this every 2-3 years to ensure opportunities to present in North America and elsewhere. 

 

In its place, a workshop ‘To Bt or not to Bt: do we need an international reference standard? Pros, cons and future directions’ will be held after the BM.  The workshop was convened by Larry Gringorten (Canadian Forest Service), Michael Brownbridge serving as moderator.  Several MCD members are involved in the session, including Gary Benzon (Benzon Research), Wendy Gelernter (Pace Consulting), and Dirk Ave (Valent Biosciences).

 

 

In addition to facilitating the workshop, the MCD is sponsoring the ‘victuals’ out of MCD funds.

 

Election of Officers

Nominations were solicited from the floor and elections were carried out by Australian ballot, and the following new officers were elected:

 

Member at Large (2007-2009) Caroline Hauxwell (Australia)

Secretary/Treasurer (2007-2009), Stefan Jaronski (USA)

Chairperson Elect (2007-2009), Surendra Dara (USA)

 

AOB

Membership Dues

By vote, it was decided to keep the dues at $2 – the best value in the SIP – for the current year, with a review at the 2008 BM.

 

Changes to USDA Regulations

Stefan Jaronski (USDA-ARS) provided an update on impending changes to USDA-APHIS regulations regarding inter-state movement and importation of microbial biocontrol agents.

The meeting was closed at 21:15, and Chair-Elect Paresh Shah now assumes responsibilities as Chair of the MCD.

 

Respectfully submitted by Michael Brownbridge and Zhengzhi Li.

Sept 30, 2007.